


Fractured Light

by Babenclaw



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: 0.2ish, Contemplations of the inevitability of death, Gen, Sadness, Time is hard to track in the RoD, friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7882246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babenclaw/pseuds/Babenclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contemplations from a shaken Keyblade Master as she faces down the time and darkness standing between herself and her friends, between being trapped and being free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fractured Light

Seventy-two hours. The human body can go seventy-two hours without water. How long had it been since she’d had fresh, cool water? How long had she been wandering this scarred wasteland, her steps blending together until she felt as though she was nothing more than her aching feet and exhausted limbs? It could have been hours and it could have been forever.

Her mouth was dry, her throat aching, but she was still alive, still moving. Had she really only been down here for seventy-two hours? She hoped, fervently, that she was wrong, that she simply didn’t require water down here.  Or did she? Did she really want to not need water, to be one step closer to the things that crawled in the dark, that stalked her in her sleep and in her waking? Terror had become a constant companion to her existence, her stomach always twisted into knots from hunger and fear.

Everything blended together in this constant darkness, ink leeching its spindly tendrils across water’s clear surface, and she could have been here for years and she could have been here for hours and she would never know. Her only timekeeping was the steady thunk of her boots on cracked, parched ground and the moments of adrenaline, her blood racing as she wielded a blade she never wanted.

The rock against her back was sharp, digging into skin long gone calloused from similar treatment. Her eyes burned from exhaustion, so much worse than any of the sleepless nights she remembered, a hazy memory of warm blankets and soft bedding and comfort. Her hair, ratted and oily from the time wandering in this despicable place, hung over her eyes as she curls her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees and staring out at her surroundings through cerulean turned dark with grime. Master Keeper waited at her side in the dirt.

“Three days,” Aqua whispers to herself, drawing her fingers through the dirt in three short lines. “One, two, three.” Her voice cracked and wavered from disuse. When she’d first ended up down here—three days ago? Two years ago? Half a decade? More?—she’d done anything to keep from the oppressive silence. It hadn’t taken long for the pressing weight of her surroundings to squeeze that out of her, though. The energy It took to even speak to herself frequently felt too great to spare. A burn settled behind her eyes, but she’d cried herself out long ago, or maybe not that long ago after all. Darkness had settled as a heavy taste on her tongue, replacing anything pleasant that might have once been.

The rock behind her did little to cushion or cradle her head, but Aqua had become used to that. There was nothing in this dreadful place that would give to her, no comfort to be found in its restless, hostile crevices. Her eyelids fluttered as she stared unseeingly upwards into the blackness above her. Surely her friends would come for her. Even now, she was sure Terra had gone to find Ven, that they were coming to save her. Her heart promised her that they were safe, that they would find her.

Her eyelids fluttered shut, protecting her from the dim light, and Aqua slept.

\- - -

As she wandered, the blue-haired mage eventually came to the conclusion that she clearly no longer needed water. There was no way that she had been down here for less than that—or was there? Was she just imagining the endless hours of torture, stretching minutes into days the way Ven used to complain about after lessons? No, it must have been longer, but that in itself was worrisome. Why were Ven and Terra taking so long? Had something gone wrong? Aqua couldn’t dwell on the possibility that she had really only been down here for a few short days. Forever spread before her, crouched and waiting like a monster with jagged, bloodstained teeth and piercing golden eyes, the same eyes that had stared impassively over her form as a hand she once found familiar and comforting closed around her throat.

She rubbed her eyes furiously, dismissing the ghostly feel of once-warm fingers digging into her windpipe. _Don’t think about it_ , her mind whispered. _It’s easier if you don’t_. Her hand curled over her heart as she looked skyward into the infinite, pressing darkness.

“Ven, Terra, keep fighting,” she whispered upwards, imagining her friends’ smiling faces rather than the emptiness she knew was there. What did the world look like, up there where there was light? Were her friends doing okay? Had Terra been able to find Ven, wake him up? She hoped so. Terra’s heart would lead him true in the end; she believed that with all of her strength. He would find his way to Ven, and they would find their way to her. She had to trust them, for her other choice was to give in to the darkness whispering in her ear, telling her that she would never leave, never feel the sunlight on her skin again.

She would be free or she would drown in this neverending darkness, choke on the acrid taste of it slithering down her throat.

“I’ll keep fighting too,” she said, looking down the path spread out before her, eyeing the spots of yellow along the sides, spots of imitation sunlight. “I promise I’ll come home to you.”

\- - -

Fights wore Aqua out so quickly she could hardly remember most of her days—but were they days? Sometimes she fell asleep within hours of waking up, or at least she assumed they were hours. She walked circles around herself, scarring the landscape further with her stolen Keyblade in a failed attempt to map the endless paths before her. No matter how hard she tried, this world defied logic, defied all her attempts to learn how to properly navigate it. This world was designed for people of darkness, not people of light, and the constant stress was starting to really wear her down.

Aqua had always been the type to wake up with a purpose, ready to face her day. She wasn’t necessarily a morning person, but once she was awake she wanted to get on with things. Here, though, she had no purpose other than survival, no reason to keep walking other than her terror at the idea of laying down and never getting back up again. It scared her, her breath catching in her throat and her leaden steps stumbling beneath her, the idea of spending the rest of her life in this darkness.

If she didn’t want for water, would she need food? Sleep? Would she just wander forever, waiting for her friends to find her?

Would they ever find her?

A lump rose in her throat and Aqua couldn’t keep her legs from wavering, couldn’t stop herself from sinking down to hide behind a nearby rock, clutching her wayfinder in her fist and biting back the bile that rose, burning in the back of her throat. What if they didn’t find her? What if they never came for her? What if she died down here, rotted away to nothing, a pile of bones bleached white on a field of endless blacks and purples, a smear of light in a world made of darkness.

Hands pressed to eyes gone dull with fear, pressing away the burning sob that threatened to escape her. The idea of dying had been something she had faced before. Master Eraqus reminded them frequently that death could be around any corner, breathing down their throats and preparing for the moment when they slipped up, the moment they would make a mistake. But how could that ever prepare anyone for the reality that help might not be coming, that Aqua might actually see her life end in these unfeeling shadows, so far away from the people she called home.

The wayfinder in her hand left sharp lines from the strength with which she gripped it. Unbidden, a single tear traced its way down the gritty side of her cheek. Her arms wrapped around herself as she pressed her spine back into the rock behind her, trying desperately to stop the way her body shook.

“I’m sorry,” she rasped out, eyes clenched tight against the darkness. “Ventus… Terra…”

A single broken sob escaped her as more tears fell, her shaky composure shattering into fragments of diamond dust before her eyes as she was finally forced to consider the idea of never making it out of this hellish place.

“I promised,” she whispered to the darkness, her fury at her situation, at the life that had been stolen from the three of them racing through her veins and freezing them through like a Glacier spell gone awry, streaking through her body.

“I promised!” she screamed now, her nails digging into her skin. A broken sob escaped her before she buried her face in the shredded fabric covering her legs, tears falling hot and fast down her cheeks and stinging the cuts across her legs and thighs. Her shoulders shook as she cried and cried until there were no tears left, nothing left for her to give.

\- - -

When Aqua saw the figure in the distance, a black cloak against a strangely lit shore, she was sure she was hallucinating. Sure it was a trick, a trap, another heartless determined to trap her down here, rip her heart from her chest. She approached it anyway, her heart aching for the idea that maybe, just maybe this figure was real. Her boots on the sand were soft, the feeling of its granules giving beneath her a strange comfort after hours-days-weeks of endless rock and void.

“Who are you?” Aqua asked the figure. The lack of recognition from the figure was already enough to tame the little bit of hope that had managed to bud in her chest. Clearly, whoever or whatever this man was, they weren’t here to help her. Exhaustion settled heavy on her shoulders, even though she had made no conscious decision to allow herself hope.

The man continued speaking to her, explaining his lack of memory, but Aqua only half listened, choosing instead to stare out at the strange light on the horizon, the way it shimmered off the water that washed up along the dark sandy beach. It reminded her of the way the moon used to shimmer on their lake in the cool evening.

“I know I’ve been here a long time,” Aqua murmured to her knees. “Wandering through the endless hours… unable to escape…”

The figure shifted next to her, but Aqua didn’t look up to him. “You wish to return to your own world?” He asked her.

She nodded, squeezing her legs with her arms and imagining the way her friends used to smile at her, all that time ago, back when they were young and happy and safe. “It’s my friends. I promised I’d be there for them.” Promises made in blood and sweat and aching bones.

He mentioned a boy, true to his friends, kind, but it wasn’t until he mentioned a Keyblade that Aqua perked up, her heart nearly bursting through her chest at the idea of her friends, solid proof that her friends were _alive_ somewhere, maybe even searching the worlds for her.

“Wait a sec,” she said through a laugh, the first smile she’d offered since she’d fallen into hell, her whole body leaning toward the man in a bout of excitement, “is his name Terra or Ven?”

A moment, a heartbeat, a wave crashing on the shore, and the man slowly shook his head. “Neither of those, I’m afraid.”

Aqua slowly sat back, all of her energy leaving her in a sigh that left her breathless, tears she’d forgotten she possessed burning the back of her eyes. “Should’ve known.” The ocean waves mocked her, reaching for her feet but never touching her, and her heart ached for home so badly she thought she might well explode from the ache in her chest. She wanted her friends and her home and to be free of this awful, monstrous place.

The man at her side continued speaking about the not-Ven, not-Terra boy, talking about how it had been at least a year since they’d met—a year? Had she been down here for a year now? Two? How had Ven or Terra not come to look for her?—and how he regretted all of the things he had done, all the things the man believed this boy could fix, could change.

“What’s his name?” Aqua asked, turning her body fully toward the man. How could this boy not be her friends, how could it not be Ven or Terra? But, no, he wasn’t either of them.

“Sora,” the man answered, staring out at the light hovering against the horizon like a beacon.

Aqua took a slow, deep breath, feeling a tear trace its warm path down her cheek, feeling it drop from her chin and land, cool and wet, against the skin of her thigh. She couldn’t explain it, the way her heart felt so light in her chest, the way the name sounded right. She thought of a small boy with eyes like the summer sky, with warm brown hair and an innocent smile, the spitting image of Ventus, and his friend who seemed so like Terra, so serious and stoic and yet utterly devoted to his friends.

Yes. Maybe it wouldn’t be her friends who freed her from this eternal night. Maybe it was right that it be somebody else.

“Sora,” she whispered, and it felt right.


End file.
